


I come with knives

by maelidify



Series: Earth Intervals [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 18+, D/s elements, F/M, Knifeplay, Maybe a little sorry, Powerplay, SO, Sorry Not Sorry, Yikes, between 3x02 and 3x05, consensual though, definitely knifeplay, female dom I guess, okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 01:32:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10980570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maelidify/pseuds/maelidify
Summary: He takes a step closer to her, runs a hand down her arm very slowly, as though he’s wondering if she’s made of spirit or flesh. His eyes are darkened, almost hostile, but reaching for something all the same, pleading for something. It dawns on her.“You liked it,” she states.





	I come with knives

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I do think Memori sex is probably nice and gentle most of the time, to contrast their harsh environment and ruthless personalities, but I'm not super great at nice and gentle. So here's some kink!
> 
> A couple of things first: I'm headcanoning Murphy at at least 18, if not 19. (I know in canon not much time has passed, but dude, Harmon is in his mid-twenties and Luisa is older than him, so yeah.) I don't think his age in seasons 1-4 was ever firmly established but consider this a slight AU where he's definitely of age. 
> 
> On that note… if you're under 18, I'd be really grateful if you didn't read my smut. I'm not comfortable with that. (Not that the sex is super explicit, but still.)
> 
> One more disclaimer! Knife play is very dangerous! That is all.
> 
> So. Without further ado...

Their first robbery will have to be someone easy, someone very young or very old or not carrying too many valuables. A practice mark. Emori wants to start John out easy, just to be safe. He’ll be good at it, though, she knows. She smears a line of animal blood down his chin and he looks at her with those wide, calculating eyes and she knows.  
  
He’s still shaky from the encounter with Jaha and Otan, full of a bristly energy like the spirit inside of wires that shocks you to the touch. She has organized the ways he has looked at her in the dustier compartments of her mind, and she knows that there is something in him that trusts something in her. She’s good at making people trust her, but building trust in someone else? She didn’t think it possible, and she knows it’s dangerous, and part of her doesn’t care.  
  
“What if the person stabs me or something?” he asks, his light tone laced with caution. “Just to make sure I’m dead?”  
  
She smiles. She’d asked Otan something similar when she’d started out, but the thought of her brother is something akin to stabbing, in terms of sensation, so she banishes him from her mind and says, “I won’t let that happen.”  
  
“Oh, you won’t?” he says wryly, but there’s a smile attached to the words. She touches her thumb to the bottom of his lip, softly smudging some dirt there. He looks down at her lips and then back to her eyes, and he’s given her that look before, once when she had a knife held against his throat. A heat tugs at her, pulling right to her core, and half of her wants to use this feeling there is between them, hone it and turn it into a weapon, something sharp so she can use him to help her with whatever she wants--  
  
“I won’t,” she says, instead. She looks at him carefully, pulling his gaze back to her eyes, and she wonders where he could have possibly come from, this person who looks at her like she’s a burning thing and he’s a lover of flames.

 

\---  
  
John is gifted at being a corpse. There’s something in him that can collapse at will, something that freezes and forces life from his eyes and limbs, something cold and empty that appears almost natural to him. She remembers some of what he told her about his separation from his people; did they give him this, this aptitude towards lifelessness, this wild animal defense mechanism?  


Still, in spite of his easy lifelessness, she can’t help but admire the long lines of his body, the male ridge of his neck, his bony shoulders. Emori has had a handful of encounters with lovers, but none of them had this lean strength, this hungry, bitter ease.  
  
None of them had looked at her left hand and, without missing a breath, told her not to hide it.  
  
But John isn’t her lover, and the young man approaching is a perfect starter’s mark. He’s walking slowly and has two bags made of canvas, presumably filled with food, and three knives attached to a belt. She’ll make sure he doesn’t get the chance to reach them.  
 

When he crouches to look at John, genuine concern in his features, she creeps behind him and holds her own knife to his throat, her right hand grabbing his wrist in a vice grip.  
  
“Stand up,” she says in his ear, “slowly.”  
  
He does so. “And no reaching for your weapons,” she adds, tightening the pressure of blade to skin. “You’ll be dead before you’re halfway there.”  
  
She says these words in their tongue, and John frowns in incomprehension as he stretches and stands up.  
  
“We’re gonna need those bags,” he says. “The knives, too.”  
  
“You can take those,” she says. The man jolts as John yanks the knives from his belt; Emori twists his arm so it’s behind his back and laughs quietly. He is trembling, just slightly. He’s likely wealthy, from Polis, trained to trade rather than fight. “Shh,” she coos, and John meets her eyes as he slips the bags from the man’s shoulders. His expression is cloudy, and Emori wonders if she’d be enjoying this half so much if it wasn’t.  
  
They could either knock him out or blindfold him; they choose the latter, since his best option once he wriggles free is to run to the nearest safe place, rather than go after them. She ties the long cloth cord tightly over his eyes, and then winds it around his wrists, twisted in back of him. John watches her all the while.  
  
\---  
  
“You felt sympathy,” she notes when they get back to the cave they’d picked out for the night. It’s an hour from the site of their robbery, and hidden well in a mass of low, twisted tree branches.  
  
“Something like that,” he says. “I’ve been on the wrong side of that knife.”  
  
She watches him, unblinking. “It was a different knife,” she says, almost like a challenge. There’s a dark smile in her voice; she is barely in control of it.  
  
He takes a step closer to her, runs a hand down her arm very slowly, as though he’s wondering if she’s made of spirit or flesh. His eyes are darkened, almost hostile, but reaching for something all the same, pleading for something. It dawns on her.  
  
“You liked it,” she states. He chuckles; the shield is back.  
  
“I never said I wasn’t fucked up.”  
 

No, that won’t do. She frowns and wraps her arms around him, tangling the fingers of her right hand in his hair. He’d washed the dirt from it in a stream a while back, and it’s still damp to the touch. “You liked it,” she says again, firmly.  
  
There’s a sigh of caustic defeat, the bitter edge that is always lurking in his voice, and he looks at her and says, “Yeah, yeah I did. Not at the time, but later.”  
  
“Liar. I saw how you looked at me.”  
  
“Well, I was too pissed to realize it, then.”

“Pissed?”  
  
“Angry, upset.” He glances down at her mouth again and she winds her hand further into his hair, tugs a little. “Betrayed.”  
  
“Get on your knees.” The order is soft, almost fragile coming from her throat. He obeys, never breaking eye contact with her. (She remembers, she remembers the desert, she remembers the strange, slow feeling she’d had robbing him, her enjoyment of a good con dulled by something she didn’t understand, something soft she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold, not with her hands the way they are--)  
  
“Do you want to do this, John?” she asks, voice still soft. "I'll have to touch your neck," she adds, low.   
  
He nods once, and once more, glaring up at her, hungry, eyes shifting. Almost empty. She wants to fill that emptiness, but she wants him to fill her even more, fill her and never leave. There’s a bird settling on her chest, and it won’t budge.  
  
She takes out a knife and holds it against his throat, holding the darkness inside her at the same time. It’s odd, how the fact of suffering works. An idea that has held her in its grip her whole life, an idea that she’s used against other people just to get a meal every or every other day, just to get supplies to trade, just to get a warm fur for winter, just to spit at this world that has told her she shouldn’t be alive. That she doesn’t deserve to be alive. To suffer is to be alive; it’s the most alive thing possible.  
  
And she wants John to _love_ being alive.  
  
She crouches in front of him, tracing faint circles on his skin with the tip of the blade. A half-moan comes from his lips. He’s still kneeling and the cave wall is at his back; he is very much at her mercy, trembling like the man they robbed, and she understands now what had been clouding his eyes.  
  
“Shh,” she says, and he moans again. She grabs his hair again, yanks his head back. “Not a sound, do you understand me?” The knife strains against his skin and he nods. She lets go of his hair and moves her hand to his chest, stomach, groin. He is already aroused by her. Good.  
  
She brings the knife up to his mouth, faintly presses it to his lower lip. He closes his eyes and she presses the less flexible thumb of her left hand against his throat, says “No” very softly. And, “Look at me, John.”  
  
So he does. His eyes are half-lidded, that fire-blue darkened, almost tragic. She nips at his mouth very faintly, tasting his dry skin and the cool metal of her blade at once, and then moves to his throat, kissing lightly, savoring the texture of his skin, the ripple of bone at his throat, the sharp intake of breath.  
  
She keeps the knife pressed at his mouth, but moves to talk lowly in his ear. “Tell me to stop, and I will. Do you understand?”  
  
He nods once more. His hands are at his knees and they curl there, tense. She’s just made this safer, and there’s something about him that longs for safety, but is uncomfortable with it all the same. She can tell by the way he talks to his people, the way he longs for connections, but itches to lose himself in chaos.  
  
She shifts to nose his neck, to run her tongue lightly against his pulse, all that blood, screaming inside of him. She bites down on that soft skin, just hard enough to hurt, and his hands are at her back now, holding her closer, and there’s a soft, almost inaudible gasp.  
  
Emori will allow that. For now.  
  
She taps at his knees with the side of her blade, something like impatience running through her. “Sit,” she says lowly, and he uncurls his legs, sitting against the cave wall, and she straddles him on his lap, pressing him between her thighs. He staring at her, through her, and it makes her shiver, and she doesn’t want to give up control but it’s _tempting_ , and she moves on his lap, moves against him, causing him to gasp, to look upwards for just a moment.  
  
“ _Fuck_ ,” he says, and she says, “What did I tell you?” before kissing him, deeply, thoroughly. He leans into her, uses his tongue tentatively, and so she pulls back and bites hard at his lip. He hisses. That sound, that pain and frustration, propels her onwards, and she reaches down with her good hand, caresses the soft skin of his stomach beneath his shirt, slides down his waistband, caresses his manhood. It’s warm and hard in her grasp, and it’s all she can do not to plunge it into herself now, find that satisfaction, quick, violent. She thumbs the head, runs the moisture up the shaft, licks his lower lip softly, stares into his eyes.  
  
“ _Fuck, Emori_ ,” he says, and it’s a gasp, a deep gasp, and she doesn’t even care that he’s talking, because she’s kissing him again, and removing her layers as quickly as possible, and he is lifting his shirt from his shoulders, a lean stretch, so much skin to kiss, and the blade is on the ground, forgotten.  
  
By her. “I liked the knife,” he says breathlessly. His eyes run over her torso, her chest, now bared, breasts peeking out from her long, tangled hair. His hands travel to her left hand, still wrapped, and unwrap it slowly.  
  
“Did you?” she asks. This moment is surrounding her, slowly, like a pack of wolves. Her hand is freed and he licks the overlage palm, and she ruts against him again, but he’s still wearing his pants and it’s more frustrating than not.  
  
He grits his teeth but doesn’t look away from her gaze, and if she could burn him up, she would. “I like a lot of things about you,” he says quietly, and it hits her like a punch in the gut, this power. Their fire flickering in his hair and this vulnerability, this strange, sharp honesty. This isn’t safe, not for either of them.  
  
“Including my knife?” she says and he nods, kissing her shoulder softly, her neck. _Including my hand?_ she doesn’t ask, because she already knows the answer. His lips are soft, and his nose brushes her skin hard and what was she thinking, prolonging this? She throws her arm out and grabs the knife with her good hand, pressing it against the back of his neck. There’s that gasp again, and that darkness flickering through him, and through her, and can you ever trust darkness? She thinks _perhaps_ , for the first time, and the thought is gentle, but she isn’t gentle, and neither is he, so what is this? What is this?  
  
“Kiss me,” she demands and he does, light, soft. She deepens the kiss and leans backwards, letting him climb over her. He moans into her mouth, hungry, and she moans back, moving her body up to meet his, pulling his pants down and hers as well and gasping as his hands touch the wet place between her legs, fingers rubbing circles into her.  
  
“That’s dangerous, John,” she says, and he smirks.  
  
“What are you gonna do to me?”  
  
Oh, the things she’d like to do.  
  
“Move down,” she says, and he understands, raising an eyebrow at her, hungry, confident. That would give him some power, wouldn’t it? She presses the knife hard against the back of his neck, the place where his spine ripples through, bone pushing up against his skin. “Move down,” she says again, carefully, eyes dark, and he still laughs lowly against her shoulder, in spite of the knife’s threat, and licks his way down her breasts, and kisses her navel, open-mouthed. He’s _insufferable,_ and she scrapes her nails against his shoulder blade, with the longer nails of her longer fingers and he groans, but doesn’t stop moving.  
  
And when his tongue finds its way between her legs, a lick and a soft kiss, those lips exploring her with such gentleness, she presses the knife against his neck even harder, scraping his skin, pushing him against her, yes, there, oh. He pushes his fingers into her and sucks at the bundle of nerves and kisses softly, and kisses _hard_ , on and off and on and off, and something wells up in her, filling her whole body.  
  
She thinks at first that she is crying, but she realizes no, that’s not what this is at all. She has never experienced it with other lovers, only a few times alone, this dark ecstasy that moves through her like it’s on wings, makes her muscles contract, contract. Her clumsy hand is tangled in his hair, pulling it, and he keeps kissing, sucking at her, and she’s saying words in her own language, words he can’t understand but must understand, must with the way he’s now smiling against her thigh…  
  
She swears once more and sets aside the warm and heavy feeling and pushes him off her, straddling him.  
  
“Told you that was dangerous, John,” she says breathlessly. His hands are at her hips and his hardness is there, right there. She’s sated but he isn’t, and she still wants him inside her, at her mercy, crying out because of her. That lust is growing in her again, just the feeling of his body beneath hers, that smug, beautiful, harsh face, and the way it’s alive, the way it’s everywhere and all around her and hers.  
  
“What are you gonna do about it?” he challenges, and she reaches for their pile of clothes, grabs a long piece of cloth. Her discarded hand wrapping.  
  
“Hands above your head,” she orders and he looks at her with that sharp delight and does so, and she wraps the cloth around his wrists, tight. He stares at her all the while.  
  
“Try it,” she says, and he pulls at the bindings, the muscles of his arms straining to no avail. She wonders at the expressions playing across his face. That hungry lust, that pent up, wiry power, some resentment, some impatience, something soft, too. She wants to touch him at too many places at once, so she runs her bad hand down his arms, wishing those fingers had the same ability for sensation as her other fingers, and touches his lips with her right, brushing some of her dampness off them.  
  
She doesn’t kiss him but it’s building up in her, growing, this tenderness, this protectiveness. She runs her fingers over his mouth again and he says her name silently, just his lips moving, staring up at her and she knows they’re thinking the same thing _how are you here, how could I possible deserve you being here_ \--  
  
So she takes him inside of her, bit by bit, adjusting to his length, letting her muscles close in around him and release, making him sigh a little, and she’s given up on silencing him because his sounds are _so_ nice, and the way the muscles of his stomach tense, and the way his hips meet hers as they find this rhythm, and now he’s sitting up, and his bound hands are around her neck, pulling her closer to him, forehead-to-forehead, and their eyes are still meeting as their thrusts get faster, as a smaller darkness unfurls inside of her body, as he quickens and she tugs at his hair and he groans into her mouth, and softens inside of her.  
  
They look at each other for a moment, wide-eyed.  
  
Then she deftly unties the knots around his wrists one-handed, and he rubs them, looking away, and she climbs off his lap and searches for her clothes within the muddled pile that is their clothes.  
  
“For the record,” he starts, breaking the silence, “I’d say I was on the right side of the knife, that time.”  
  
She laughs and turns back to him, clothes be damned. “ _Would_ you.”  
  
“Yeah.” That wry mask is back, but there’s something honest about it, something clean and alive. He stands up, and wraps his arms around her waist, their bare skin warm and damp in tandem. “So is this how you convince people to join your life of crime?”  
  
“Only you, John.” She smiles into a kiss, and realizes she is naked, arms to hands, chest to feet, and so is he, and it’s okay. He sees everything that she is, and he takes it in like air, and she lets him, she lets him. He’s a road, and she wants to wander down it.  
  
He’s a person, and warm, and in front of her, and she trusts him so absolutely that it’s terrifying. It’s giddy, this fact, this trust, this mystery.  
  
“We should get some rest,” she says finally, and he sits, and tugs her down to join him. “We need to get back to work tomorrow.”  
  
“So we’re doing it again?”  
  
“Of course.” She snuggles into his chest and his arms wrap around her, the pad of one finger caressing her left hand, so slowly, so softly.  
  
“All of it?” he asks, and she looks up at him, just a bit wickedly.  
  
“That’s up to you,” she murmurs, letting herself sound just a _bit_ dangerous, and he kisses the top of her head.  
  
He falls asleep first and as he breathes in and out, Emori can feel the pounding of that heart beneath her ear, and it is music. Better, even.

**Author's Note:**

> .  
> .  
> .  
>  Title is from the IAMX song of the same name.


End file.
